Tuesday, August 25, 2009

A Writer's Life

My writing time has diminished significantly over the last month or so. Work has gone nuts and filled my seven and a half hours a day with...work! As I sit here writing this blog post I'm actually working on a server in another state (and I have another half dozen servers to work on before I leave today) - crazy.

I'm trying to be fair and reasonable with usage of the computer at home. I usually hog the study where our only Internet connection resides, so the wife and kids don't get much chance. Now I'm in there only a couple of times a week, and usually only for an extended period, when other family members are home, once a week. I really need to move my laptop out of the study completely and worry about logging onto the 'Net only to download my email. If nothing else, it should facilitate more writing.

This week, WIP Wednesday will be late in being posted as I won't actually be in the state. Tonight I fly out for a couple of days to attend a (work related) course. This will give me two nights (although I get in to the hotel fairly late tonight so really only one night) where I will be in a hotel room with no distractions and no excuses. That night will be Wednesday night and therefore to be included in this weeks WIP Wednesday tally (which currently stands at a little over 1.7K). It will be an interesting exercise.

Although time is extremely tight at the moment, I'm still managing to crawl forward in putting this manuscript together - and forward at any speed is good.

In other writing-related news, 'Worth the Wait' scored its third vaguely good rejection. Everything from the premise to the dialogue has now been complimented on somewhere along the line. I'll find that one market that likes all the bits eventually...to that end, I've done a read through and edit (cut a further 6 whole words!), and sent it back out the door.

Okay, I've been writing this post for nearly an hour now, continually stopping to go back and do some real work, and now another server in another state is calling for my attention. Still haven't had anyone tell what this weeks lotto numbers are...I'm willing to share!

Good luck with your writing.

14 comments:

  1. Good luck to you too! Sometimes it's refreshing to have real life and work take the focus off writing. Makes me miss it, and happy to get back to it eventually.

    Looks like you're going to rack up quite a bit, come Wednesday. Nice!

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  2. What about a little EeePC or whatever they're called? Purely for writing on?

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  3. If I tried to multi-task like that I think my fingers would fall off!

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  4. I can sympathize about the work stuff as my employer is squeezing a couple extra hours a day out of me this week. Have a safe (and productive) trip.

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  5. I always seem to find it easier to write at work than at home – in officially designated break-times, of course (if my boss happens to be reading this).

    Way too many distractions at home – usually starting with ‘Dad, can we do this...?’

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  6. I enjoy writing at work, as you know. It feels like procrastination so not like work at all - though sometimes it's hard to get in the right frame of mind to write fiction.

    Ah, and having no Internet has been a god send at times. It often forces me to write.

    Good luck with finding time, especially at the hotel. Personally, it sounds kind of bad because I'm such a sook being away from home.

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  7. Hi B T,
    I have an award waiting for you over on my site, ready to be picked up. :)
    Laura

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  8. I still find it amazing how life gets in the way of what we like to do.

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  9. I'm in the same boat. The day job, or in your case and sometimes mine, the night job, can really screw things up sometimes. If we've come this far in life and are still plugging away at this writing thing however, rest assured that we will all win in the end.

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  10. Good luck in Melbourne. Hope you get in some good writing time.

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  11. Woo. Sending you some extra time vibes. (Meaning that I hope you get some, not that I hope you turn into it. [I have no idea what I'm saying either.])

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  12. I think I would go batshit insane if I had to share one internet connection with my family (even right now when my family consists of work-all-day me and my retired home-all-day mother). We're lucky to have wifi--absolutely worth the extra expense.

    I hope your work slows down a bit soon so you can get more writing done. Of course, your subconscious is always working on the writing, but that's not really a consolation when you don't have time to get the words out of your brain.

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  13. In some ways, it's great to be booted off a shared computer. I get bugger all done with that tempting internet just lurking in the background.

    Have gone low-tech, writing on an electric typewriter! And transcribing it later into Word. It's just a hoot, really feels like one is writing as the daisy wheel clacks and whirs and hammers ink into the paper. Awesome.

    Hope you got some writing down while you were away, what a golden opportunity!

    All the best,

    jason.

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